Just thought I would document this issues from the start and let everyone in on the eventual solution. So right up front the car is at the dealership getting diagnosed. Here are the symptoms.
Every two weeks of no driving the battery would be dead and need a charge or jump.
On the third two week interval the battery would not charge above 11 v.
New battery was purchased
Key would turn, lights on dash would power but no crank
Shifter moved from park to neutral
Starter relay bench tested good
Starter fuses good.
My Xentry connect would come up with software error, so I couldn't pull codes.
I decided to have it towed to the dealership
When the car was towed and the vehicle was in neutral the rear wheels were locked up.
Because I am under pressure to get the vehicle driving and the cause (I assume) could be an ECU.
I ordered a used one. By the way the dealership won't clone a used one only new ones. However, they no longer sell new ones. So if you know for sure you have an ECU issue don't bother going to a dealership.
TBC
Every two weeks of no driving the battery would be dead and need a charge or jump.
On the third two week interval the battery would not charge above 11 v.
New battery was purchased
Key would turn, lights on dash would power but no crank
Shifter moved from park to neutral
Starter relay bench tested good
Starter fuses good.
My Xentry connect would come up with software error, so I couldn't pull codes.
I decided to have it towed to the dealership
When the car was towed and the vehicle was in neutral the rear wheels were locked up.
Because I am under pressure to get the vehicle driving and the cause (I assume) could be an ECU.
I ordered a used one. By the way the dealership won't clone a used one only new ones. However, they no longer sell new ones. So if you know for sure you have an ECU issue don't bother going to a dealership.
TBC
Unfortunately taking a 20 plus year old car to the dealership is not the best choice, thwae generation Mercedes cars suffer from among other things, difficult and expensive to repair electrical faults. They are absolute electrical nightmares. Repairs, many times, meet or exceed the value of the vehicle. With this vehicle at 25 years of age, many specific parts are NLA and there probably won’t be cost effective solutions for them.
Parasitic electrical drains lead to dead batteries, which lead to jump start packs or jump start battery chargers, which definitely lead to problems like these. These cars do not like under or over voltage conditions. It gets very expensive and time consuming very quickly.
I would personally never own one of these cars if I couldn’t do all of the repairs myself, even then it’s questionable as I have 7 amg cars from this era. They require constant attention and repair.
Parasitic electrical drains lead to dead batteries, which lead to jump start packs or jump start battery chargers, which definitely lead to problems like these. These cars do not like under or over voltage conditions. It gets very expensive and time consuming very quickly.
I would personally never own one of these cars if I couldn’t do all of the repairs myself, even then it’s questionable as I have 7 amg cars from this era. They require constant attention and repair.
The no crank was just a bad starter. This is odd since the car only have 65,000 original miles. The rear wheel lock up in neutral was just a stuck E-Brake. Overall easy fix and not big money.
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